First, those Wii games were all 4-7 years ago. The last time Nintendo pushed their own system was in 2010. Even later Wii games like Skyward Sword weren't system pushers. Secondly, it's a lot easier to push an SD system with hardware Nintendo were already familiar with from the Gamecube than to push tech that's new to them. Thirdly, they're just not interested in pushing tech, as evidenced by the simplicity of their Wii U games.

Criterion said of using better-than-PS30 textures that: "There's a switch in our build pipeline that says 'use PC textures' and we flipped that and that was all," Hamadi laughs. "I can take no credit for that, it was literally ten minutes' work... " 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-need-for-speed-most-wanted-wii-u-behind-the-scenes

In light of this, "lazy" seems a perfect description for devs who fail to use higher resolution assets on Wii U.

And Need for Speed itself is open world, FYI.

Actually, Need for Speed also drew more reflections and ran at a higher framerate than PS3/360, it wasn't just the textures.

My claim that devs are lazy is backed by very solid evidence; the lack of better-than-PS3/360 textures and assets despite Wii U having more than twice as much RAM and Criterion stating it's easy to do so.

Using such games, ported from different architectures which devs are far more experienced with, as proof of a system's power when that system is in its infancy, is as misleading as using early PS3 ports as proof that is is dramatically weaker hardware than the 360.

You honestly think that trick could work in ACIV? You honestly think its that straightforward?

Well I guess bayonetta 2 and X will have high res textures. Else "lazy"

With 1GB of RAM available to games, you can use higher resolution textures than if you only had <500MB like PS3/360. There is no excuse for Wii U ports not to have upgraded textures.

As for X and Bayo 2, I fully expect them to have scenes more expansive and detailed than could be done on the comparatively RAM-starved PS3/360.

Dont be so niave to think every game has the same requirements just because its open world. "At settings on which we conducted all of our testing, we can see that 2Gb of VRAM is good for any resolution. Even cards with 1,5 GB of RAM, like the GTX 580 will have no trouble with this game at 1080p."
http://www.hardwarepal.com/assassins-creed-4-black-flag-benchmark-cpu-gpu/






Plase tell me how the WiiU will handle all that in a single GB of RAM. With a simple switch as you put it.

Im no rocket scientist, but you cant honestly think these games have the same RAM usage

1GB (Wii U) is more than double <500MB. (PS3/360) Simple as that.

you dont know really what console optimization is???
PCs games have to be compatible with many configurations, consoles just one

The only WiiU games that has high grade textures as a possible option are ACIII, ACIV, BlacList and both batman games. Every other game is either a 7th gen console exclusive or has console textures even on PC. The lazy argument doesn't apply to those games as you are basically be asking the studio to generate assets twice, for a platform that barely sales any software. Blacklist allows the PS3 and 360 to install high definition textures on the HDD. The WiiUs does not allow that (bravo Nintendo engineers http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/08/talking_point_the_wii_us_limited_hard_drive_space_and_future_install_headaches). Adding HD textures would just extend the games abysmal loading times. Just like DKC TF load times.

Asking for 3rd parties to completely rewrite their engines for a poorly conceived platform that offers little or no financial incentive is ridiculous.

Nobody calls Mass Effect 2 or 3 ugly on PC (and thats with XBOX 360 assets all round!). PC gamers are able to deal with it (even without mods) so thats a terrible excuse. Of course those games could run at 60fps and higher resolutions if the Us GPU offered a genuine performance leap. Not happening. Perhaps you think they locked the framerate to 30fps for the hell of it.

The PS4 and X1 have an excess of RAM which enables ultra textures to be turned on and still have up to 3.5GB RAM left to everything else. Double memory doesn't mean double textures as I indicated above. Im trying to find Most Wanteds GPU memory footprint on PC as well. You grossly underestimate the time or effort it would take to tweak textures for optimal WiiU footprints. NO SINGLE CONSOLE gets that kind of preferential treatment unless its a damn exclusive. Not even X and Bayonetta can get away with larger worlds AND better textures at the same time.

To think that devs don't experiment and toggle with these settings on new toys (hardware) is silly. They probably did and realised they'd need to make some cutbacks or implement brand new technology just to get it to work on the U. Which is not viable in any way based on the performance of games on the system. Such corners and concessions should not have to be made on "next gen" hardware.

Thinking every game can use high res textures just because of one game is silly. How an games have gimped textures according to you? Because textures are the last line of defense in your laziness theory.

Currently the supporters of "WiiU being some kind of magical powerhouse" are flip flopping between Denial and Anger....luckily most WiiU owners and Nintendo supporters have moved on to stage 5 and accepted that the WiiU is a weak piece of hardware, but that's ok because they are enjoying the time they are having with their Nintendo games, also those games are by no means ugly, infact they are gorgeous for what the WiiU can do.

I would implore these supporters to strive to reach level 5, I know it'll be difficult but it will set them at ease. At the very lease it would remove the shackles of the "Inferiority complex" they are currently bound by.

---

In regards to this thread, like I've said before, it doesn't matter if the WiiU has a bandwidth of 2TB/s, or whether it has 64GB of main ram, or even 64MB of EDram, None of this MATTERS because the WiiU is crippled by it's incredibly low powered GPU and CPU.

Being that Nintendo hardware engineers are very good at balancing their hardware designs to achieve efficiency both in performance and power usage, they would never be stupid enough to put in a part into their design which could never be used by other parts as that would both be inefficient and a waste on resources.

Having said this, what is more plausible, that Nintendo designed an unbalanced system where one part of it's hardware design is overly engineered resulting in an inefficient and costly design, or that Nintendo designed a balanced, performance efficient, and cost efficient design with their target being the PS3/360 as to achieve ports?

I'd say Nintendo as usual followed the balanced, performance efficient, and cost efficient hardware designs they've always followed, and although they didn't hit their target goal of the PS3/360, they came close and ended up with the hardware being slightly more capable, which is only natural given the progress in technology. So even choosing a low powered GPU to try match a GPU from 8 years ago would be difficult cuz of the newer more efficient GPU architectures as well as there newer feature sets, still Nintendo managed it...I suppose they had to if they wanted a 40watt machine no bigger than the Wii...well almost cuz the WiiU is a little bigger.

In the end it really comes down to, what's more reasonable and what's more plausible given the end product and the software that's on it. I personally am on the reasonable side of this coin, as for the others on the otherside, take what I said as you like, I would just implore that you use your reason and logic faculties to see reality for what it actually is, and not what you dream it to be.